A week ago, on the last day of July 2012, a project with investment capital of more than 47 million USD was officially started construction in Cai Lan expanded Industrial Park (Ha Long, Quang Ninh).
That is the grind wheat VFM-Wilmar project by two investors in ASEAN region: Wilmar Intenationnal Group of Singapore and FFM Group of Malaysia. Thus, there was an additional capital of foreign direct investment (FDI) from ASEAN into Vietnam, after Vietnam opens its economy and especially after Vietnam officially joined ASEAN on July 28th 1995.
By the end of July 2012, according to the Foreign Investment Department (Ministry of Planning and Investment), the ASEAN countries have invested in Vietnam 2019 projects with total registered capital of 45.86 billion USD. This precious capital greatly contributed to the economic-social development Vietnam.
There are a lot of large and effective projects of the ASEAN investors in Vietnam, such as the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) of Sembcorp (Singapore), cover from Binh Duong to Bac Ninh, Hai Phong, and now expand more in Quang Ngai, Ciputra urban area (Hanoi) – a joint venture project by Indonesia and Vietnam with 2.1 billion USD capital investment; or the EcoLake project (SP Setia – Malaysia) with capital of 800 million USD; Amata industrial park project (Thailand) in Dong Nai …
The investment plans are continuing, while Vietnam is still identified as one of the potential investment destinations. “We consider Vietnam as an attractive investment location, based on such factors as favorable geographical location, strong FDI inflows since so many major corporations around the world are selecting Vietnam instead of China. Moreover, the economic policy of Vietnam is also very good. Despite the challenges in the short term, but we remain optimistic about the potential long-term growth in Vietnam “, the representative of Mapletree, a major investor of Singapore said.
Start investing in Vietnam since 2005 with the first project in Binh Duong, after a while, Mapletree has developed a series of logistic, real estate, industry, office, retail and commercial project in Hanoi, Bac Ninh and HCMC. Last March, Mapletree has started construction Vivocity SC Trade Center, located in Saigon South Palace Complex (District 7, HCMC). “With this project, we have committed to invest 1 billion USD in Vietnam”, the representative of Mapletree said, the company plans to set up an investment fund to invest in real estate projects in Vietnam.
Other investors, such as Jaks Resources (Malaysia) is still actively develop Hai Duong Thermal Power Project with capital of 2.25 billion USD; Sembcorp (Singapore) would like to build a 2 billion USD power project in Quang Ngai. In terms of SCG (Thailand), they continues to follow up with Long Son Refinery project (4.5 billion USD).
Of course, there are many other projects that ASEAN investors investing in Vietnam. Part of this until this point has not really formed. However, it is clear that investment opportunities between Vietnam and other ASEAN countries is enormous.
(Source: Bao Dau Tu)